


Hot and Cold

by Dutch



Category: Homestuck
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Snowed In, Stridercest Secret Santa 2018, pinning, warm and fuzzy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dutch/pseuds/Dutch
Summary: Dave is pinning for his brother, only to be repeatedly meet with issue, ending him into a hot and cold mix of feelings over their annual Christmas vacation.





	Hot and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy!

The forecast for Huston, Texas was sunny and 60. No wind, no rain, the humidity was decent. Dave had never spent a Christmas in Huston, though. Since he could remember, his brother had been loading him up in the truck every December twenty-something and driving them up to the middle of nowhere to spend Christmas.  
  
They needed snow, he’d always insisted they needed snow.  
  
They went in spurts, every couple years renting a different cabin in a different town. The most recent one they’d frequented for the last three years, out on the Oklahoma planes where they were sure to be snowed in, as tradition. The truck was a regular cab, and between the seats and the wall were brown grocery bags packed to the gills with stuff to make honest to god home cooked meals. There’d be no take out after the storm.  
  
The cabin was nestled in a pine forest, down a gravel road. The leaves were off, leaving the deep brown bark bare for all to see, an interwinding maze of trees, a natural arboretum of species, coexisting together with their inhabitants. There were squirrels in Huston, but not nearly as many as these, and the birds? God the birds. Woodpeckers and nuthatches and sparrows aplenty. Crows too, but not like the ones in the city. They weren’t interested in humans and their offered food, rather they sounded an alarm that sent animals scattering as they arrived.  
  
Dave’s boots crunched on the stone driveway, looking over the house with a whimsy the only Christmas vacation brought. He’d grown up knowing Santa wasn’t real, but time spent in these places was more real than all eight tiny reindeer.  
  
“Reminds me of that place in Colorado, when we stayed up in the mountains,” Bro spoke, shutting the truck door. There was no need to lock it.  
  
“Yeah, I like the log ones best,” he agreed, turning to grab his duffel out of the back, and a few tied off grocery bags.  
  
“Oh, yeah? Should have mentioned that before.”  
  
Dave rolled his eyes as he climbed the steps, Bro, right behind him with the key. He was sure he’d mentioned it in the past.  
  
The interior of the house was dusty at best and musty at worst, but once they turned the furnace on and cycled the air filter, and maybe dusted off the couch they’d be set. There was a reason they brought bleach wipes. Part of the Christmas tradition was always spent with a bottle of bleach.  
  
There were only three rooms in the place, a great room that included a kitchen and living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom, though there was a second bed in the living room’s pull out couch. The decor was dated, but in a good way, Dave guessed. It had a romantic vintage look, red plaid, and real wood floors, no laminate like in the yuppie house’s in the city, these floors were cut out of real trees, put in and lived on and had a rich walnut color that Dave couldn’t help but stop to admire.  
  
“This is one of the nicer places we’ve stayed in,” Dave remarked, placing his bag down on the couch and was surprised there was no dust cloud poofing off of it.  
  
“Same dust as last year,” Bro laughed, tossing his bag next to Dave’s. “Going out to get more shit.”  
  
Bro left again, shutting the door behind them. Dave breathed out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding as the door hit the jam. Another Christmas here. But another Christmas… with maybe some thoughts he wasn’t proud of. He guessed he’d had this sick little puppy love for his brother the last few years since he turned eighteen. There was something about being two bachelors living together that were just... too idealistic.  
  
He looked down, unzipping his duffle to grab the bleach wipes he’d stored inside, but what meet him was not his clean clothes and thick socks. Cal’s creepy little fucking face meet him instead. Jesus, he was gonna kill Bro, this was so like him.  
  
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
  
The snow started early on Christmas Eve. Around four in the afternoon, it started as a light dusting, making the outside look like a snow globe and a fire inside look very appealing. Dave helped Bro fill the wood rack next to the fireplace and he got the flame going while Dave started on dinner.  
  
The whole thing was so domestic, listening to a cracklings fire while good smells filled the whole house.  
  
The menu was not complex. The want was something simple, but enough food they could snack on it the rest of their time at the cabin. Green bean casserole, a honey ham, cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes and a metric fuck ton of cookies. In past years they’d done gingerbread and had a ball drawing obscene symbols on them, but this year Dave had wanted to make them from scratch, a recipe he’d got online, with peanut butter and chocolate chips and M&Ms, the whole nine yards. And maybe, just maybe, Bro would take notice of all the word he’d put in.  
  
However, it seemed Bro only noticed the parts of the whole, not the cookies themselves. The M&Ms never made it in the batter, and more than once Dave caught his brother in the peanut with a spoon. Dave thought he might have been trying to be cute, but it was anything but. The last straw was Bro sticking his finger into the bowl, reaching right around where Dave was stirring.  
  
“Do you literally have nothing else to do?” Dave spat.  
  
“Nope. Kinda the point of snowed in on Christmas,” Bro countered, reaching back around for another taste.  
  
“Um, no!” Dave squawked, slapping his hand before he could contaminate the entire batch. “Can’t you wait like, a half hour for these to be done?”  
  
“You know what they say about cookie dough,” Bro shrugged, walking off to poke through the rest of the kitchen. “It’s fucking delicious.”  
  
“I thought ‘they’ said not to eat it because it had raw egg,” Dave snarked.  
  
“That too,” Bro agreed. Dave heard him open the oven door and check the ham, and heard the door shut.  
  
“If you keep opening that it’s not gonna cook.”  
  
“Dude, what’s got your panties in a wad?”  
  
“Dude, just get out of the kitchen,” Dave huffed, putting down his spoon and turning to face him. “I can’t make you want to help but can you at least make this easier on me?”  
  
Bro raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sure, I can. But who said I didn’t want to help?”  
  
That sort of took Dave back. Bro had cooked Christmas dinner until Dave took the reins a few years ago, and the guy had acted like he couldn’t have been happier. Why this year was he being so insufferable about it? This whole time had Bro, what, been trying to get Dave to give him a job?  
  
“Oh,” Dave muttered. “Do you wanna make the green beans?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Dave didn’t look back at Bro, but as he divided his cookies on to a baking sheet and set them aside to go in the fridge, he could hear Bro grabbing the casserole dish they’d brought, opening the cans of cream of mushroom soup. He could hear the always unattractive plop as the green beans left the can and into the dish. Bro was quiet for once, and Dave was sort of enjoying it.  
  
Not in the sense he wanted to be rid of him, but more in the sense he was just enjoying his company, a far cry from earlier. It was nice to spend time together like this. Almost back to back in this little kitchen, warmth all around from the fire and the oven.  
  
“Onions in or on top?” Bro asked a prolonged silence.  
  
“On top,” Dave answered. “You don’t ever put the onions in the thing to start, you add them later.”  
  
Bro didn’t answer, and when Dave turned around he noticed Bro wasn’t moving. Just sort of staring down at the cupboard in front of him.  
  
“Well,” Bro started, and he didn’t say anything else.  
  
“You dumped them in it already, didn’t you?”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
Dave could only sigh, and he couldn’t even put his hands on his hips because they were still covered in raw dough.  
  
“Just cover it and stick it in the fridge. If it turns out it turns out,” he replied, exasperated.  
  
Bro did exactly as Dave told him for once in his life, and then quickly left the kitchen. After washing his hands, Dave started to clean up part of the mess. He was halfway through when he picked up the box the crispy onions had been in and found it mostly full. Hadn’t Bro said he put them in the casserole? Some of them he did, but not all of them. There was still plenty to go where they were supposed to.  
  
Dave wrote it off as good luck and moved on with his day.  
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
By dinner, there was a full out blizzard going on. Gone were the powdery flakes that made everything sparkle, replaced by wet packing snow that was mounding up inches an hour, so fast it was proportional to every bad Christmas special he’d ever seen. Rudolph levels. As was the tradition.  
  
The food was good, just like always, and the casserole turned out just fine, as well as the remaining cookies Dave had struggled by. It wasn’t anything fancy either, they didn’t usually do tablecloths and a smuppet was their centerpiece, ironically, or maybe not. Dave had grown up a little more every year in little shacks like this one and there was a comforting warmth that settled in his belly when his brother settled into the seat across from him. The forks were bent, but that hardly mattered.  
  
“Did good on the ham,” Bro spoke, halfway through a mouthful, food packed into his cheek like a chipmunk as he talked with his mouth full.  
  
“Learned from the best,” Dave smiled, but immediately regretted it. That was not a Strider thing to say, Striders played compliments off cool and nonchalant. That was a lovesick fool talking, and Dave could feel the burn in his cheeks.  
  
Bro just sort of laughed and shrugged. “What can I say? You speak the truth.”  
  
Okay, still time to get it back together, still time to sound cool. Sound snarky. “Didn’t go to your head at all though, no, never.”  
  
“Not one bit,” Bro agreed.  
  
Dave looked down at his plate, still smiling. His cool was lost, and he couldn’t find himself able to care.  
  
“Want some more?” Bro asked, and Dave looked up to find his hand on Dave’s glass that was once full of iced down coke. What, really? Bro was offering to do something nice for him? Really?  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Dave didn’t turn to watch him, but he could hear his brother”s heavy footsteps on the floorboards, the kitchen ones creaking in front of the fridge. He heard the ice hit the glass, the soda pours out of the two litter, and Bro’s footsteps return.  
  
He didn’t see it, but he could feel it when ice slipped down the back of his shirt.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Bro had made himself scarce after dinner. He knew Dave was pretty mad, but Dave would never tell him it was about more than ice. The weather outside got worse as it got darker, ice growing out there just as fast as it slipped down his warm back earlier. It only made Dave feel worse.  
  
Bro would only ever like him as a brother, and that was both an issue and not. He shouldn't want him, but he did. It was a blessing they weren’t going against social construct, but god, if they could only. The back and forth made Dave feel as if he wanted to curl into a ball and stay there, so he did.  
  
Dave thought the name for this type of fireplace might be a river rock fireplace, the stones particularly smooth under his fingers in a way that man-made stone couldn’t perfect. This cabin was old, besides, he was sure they were authentic, as authentic as the smokey scent of logs crackling behind the grate, the flame warming the stone same as it warmed the air in the room.  
  
The rug covering the old wood floors had been questionable, but Dave supposed that’s what blankets were for as he spread one out, building a nest of blankets and pillows to curl up in with that as the base. He had himself cocooned before long, knees to his chest, the weight of the tangle of blankets was a comfort to him, and he could feel his cheeks redden as his body temperature raised.  
  
He hasn’t even realized he was napping until he was raised from the thin veil sleep had on him by a hand on his hip. There was only one other person in the cabin, he knew who it was.  
  
“You look pretty cute down here by the fire,” Bro spoke, slow, letting his accent lay thick over his words. Dave didn’t move, only shut his eyes again. Bro didn’t talk to him that way, he knew he was dreaming.  
  
“Mind if I join you?” This was a dream, of course, he could. This was Dave’s dream, so he would.  
  
Dave’s body felt heavy like syrup, not even awake enough to shake his head. Without meaning to, a little noise sprung quiet from his throat, an affirming hum, and that was all it took to convince Bro, it seemed. Dave was aware of the blankets moving, and then a large, cool presence settling behind him, curling in on his smaller frame to steal his covers and body heat.  
  
“Jesus, you’re almost hot under here,” his brother murmured, and it was that cold sensation that brought him out of it. If Bro wasn’t really here, why could he really feel the chill?  
  
“What?” Dave murmured, sucking in a deep breath. He could smell Bro’s cologne almost instantly, became more aware of a hand on his belly, an arm over his side.  
  
“I said you’re so warm you’re almost hot.”  
  
“What’s it matter?” Dave grunted, burying his face in the blanket. “You’re probably just down here to shove more ice down my shirt or put a bug in my hair or something else stupid or insensitive. This is the worst Christmas trip we’ve ever been on, I don’t know why you even brought me. Go away, Bro. I just want to sleep.”  
  
“Dave, I-“ He stammered. “Dave, do you really think that? This is the worst trip you’ve ever been on?”  
  
Dave didn’t dignify him with a reply. Maybe he’d just get up and leave.  
  
“Dude. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” Bro said, exasperated.  
  
“Look, the truth is,” he sighed. “I knew all along you liked log cabins. And I knew those cookies were important to you, and I know how to make green bean casserole, I knew all of that stuff. I just wanted to act like I didn’t. I didn’t want to get too close. I didnt want you to know that I-“  
  
Bro sighed, heavy as if the weight of the world was resting on his shoulders.  
  
“The truth, Dave, is that I really like you. More than… more than a brother should. And I know I shouldn't. I shouldn't be paying so close attention to these dumb little details, because I shouldn't like you like that.”  
  
Dave twisted around, his eyes wide to bulging. What? This was like the stupidest fucking hallmark movie, there was no way in hell Dave was going to get what he wanted most. Not for fucking Christmas.  
  
“And you know what?” Bro continued. “I feel like an idiot because it all backfired anyway. I just. Don’t know what to say anymore. Do with that information what you want.”  
  
“Bro, you don’t have to say anything, you asshole. Bro, I- I’ve wanted you. For years. And I know I should like you like that, and this is a social disaster, and illegal, and this that and the other thing, but god. And you don’t know how good it feels for you to feel the same.”  
  
Dave had never seen uncertainty on Bro’s face like that before, and honestly, it was a little scary. His amber eyes searched Dave’s face for something, and when he didn’t find it, his frown deepened.  
  
And then, the hand that was on his back that was once in his belly tightened, and the next thing Dave knew there were warm lips on his. It was brief as it was soft and more than welcome. They separated with a quiet pop, and Dave found his fingers fisting themselves into Bro’s shirt. He wanted to hold him there. Keep him. Just in case this really was a dream.  
  
“This is real?”  
  
“Mhm,” Bro hummed. “It’s real.”  
  
“Not a dream?”  
  
“Not a dream.”  
  
This time, when their lips meet Bro’s words sounded true. Firmer, less hesitant. They both wanted to be there, wrapped in each other's arms, warm under blankets while the cold wind howled outside.


End file.
